1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to workout devices, and more particularly, to a workout device with a foot-oriented elliptical loop.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to technological advancements and economic prosperity, people's living standards improve continuously, so does the demand for leisure and recreation, such as fitness workouts, travel, and shopping. Workouts are carried out either indoors or outdoors. Common indoor workout devices abound and include elliptical trainers, treadmills, flywheel bicycles, large weight training devices, and workout benches. The elliptical trainer guides a user's feet to follow a substantially elliptical unending path in order to take cyclic exercise. Exercising in this way not only approximates to walking or running as far as the lower limbs are concerned, but also has less impact on the user's knee joint and ankle joints. Hence, elliptical trainers are popular with consumers and thus manifest continuous market growth in recent years.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,480 discloses an elliptical trainer that enables a user's feet to move along a substantially elliptical path, because a supporting rod has one end for performing a circular-path motion in conjunction with a crank mechanism and has the other end whose motion is restricted to sliding along a linear path and reciprocating; hence, a specific portion of the supporting rod follows a substantially elliptical path. U.S. Pat. No. 7,682,290 disposes that one end of a supporting rod for use with a user's foot is pivotally connected to an external end of a crank to thereby restrict the supporting rod to a circular path, and discloses that the other end of the supporting rod is pivotally connected to a bottom end of a swing arm and restricted to a curved path for swinging back and forth. However, although the foot-specific supporting structure moves along an elliptical loop, the supporting structure descends abruptly as soon as the user's foot has swung to the highest level and is going to drop and return. Also, segmental junctions of the elliptical loop are so widely spaced apart that the treading process is marked by unsmooth transitions and even jolts, thereby causing discomfort to the user's knee joints and ankle joints.